HARDENED news reporter Julie MacDonald tells how, despite being a sceptic over paranormal investigations, she was moved by experiences for her new TV series.

JULIE MacDONALD is a serious news woman. As a reporter and presenter for news channel Al Jazeera, the Scottish journalist has spent several years reporting in the Middle East and has covered hard-hitting and dangerous stories all over the turbulent region.

But even her well-earned nerves of steel melted when she spent some time in the company of her most dangerous interview subject ever - a serial killer who has been dead for almost 30 years

The Glasgow-born presenter is the star of a new paranormal investigation series about the worst murderers in history, and spent six months travelling around America with a psychic trying to contact the spirits of the killers and their victims.

Julie expected nothing but hocus pocus from her seance sessions, but says she was left in tears, out of breath and feeling physically sick by her encounters.

She has teamed up with US psychic Bobby Marchesso for the series which features serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Aileen Wuornos and Jeffrey Dahmer.

In Conversations With Serial Killers, Julie would conduct interviews with witnesses and detectives who were involved in the cases to get a factual background, and then Bobby would make contact with the victims or the killers themselves.

Julie, who works as a reporter and news anchor for the English language version of Al-Jazeera, said that she went into the project with no beliefs in ghosts or the paranormal, but was surprised by the intensity of what they discovered.

"When my agent first told me about the programme, I thought she was joking, because although I wouldn't say I don't believe, I am more of an open-minded sceptic.

"But it turned out that was what they wanted because the idea was to present the programme with a strong documentary feel.

"I didn't want to be teamed up with someone who would jump about and be possessed, I wanted it to be a good show and not be silly, and I was lucky that they got Bobby, he was brilliant.

"He used to be a police officer and is very down to earth, he's plausible. I tried to keep the balance and the straight head.

"We did have a lot of good natured arguments like if Bobby would say something is really exciting and I'd have to say to him, 'c'mon mate, it's just the ice machine'. I wanted this show to be the sensible, intellectual face of ghost hunting."

Julie, who has also worked for MSNBC in New York as well as the BBC and GMTV in London, said she was definitely the Scully to Bobby's Mulder as she felt it was her mission to be as sceptical as possible and not get carried away.

The duo started off in Seattle at the home of Ted Bundy, who is believed to have raped and murdered between 30 and 100 women in the 1970s.

They then investigated the cases of John Wayne Gacy, the Chicago killer clown with 33 victims, Richard Trenton Chase, the vampire of Sacramento who killed and ate six victims, and Aileen Wuornos, the killer made famous in the film Monster.

They investigated the murders of Jeffrey Dahmer who killed 17 men and boys and was notorious for rape, necrophilia, cannibalism and torture.

For each serial killer, the team would interview people who were involved, or who have researched the cases, and then conduct a seance in a home or locale of the killer to try to contact the spirits.

They would use a device known as a radio for the dead, which it is claimed can pick up on spirits or messages that may be present in a particular place.

It was using such a device at the Dahmer home that Julie got her first chill. "The radio is like a car radio in that it's constant static like it's seeking for radio waves, and you ask questions and you get a series of words which if you believe in these things you can attribute to spirits.

"So I was ready to leave, but the first word we heard was help.

"We heard various words, we head the names Jeffrey and the name of a victim, and we asked 'what does your father do?' and we heard the word chemist. Jeffrey Dahmer's dad was a chemist.

"Don't ask me how it happened. If you believe it is possible, we were hearing from Dahmer himself or the victims. There was something going on the room. I didn't feel anything physical but there was something there."

The power of suggestion and coincidence is something Julie is not sure of, although she knows she did feel ill a few times.

"On one occasion we were looking into the case of Richard Trenton Chase, the vampire of Sacramento who killed six people, and would eat them.

"We went into his house, and met the arresting officers who said it was like something out of Fright Night, there was blood everywhere when they arrested him.

"One of the officers was so badly affected by it that when we were talking, he started crying.

"We then did a seance in a bar he used to go to. I sat down for five minutes and I was overcome with the feeling that I couldn't breathe, my heart was beating fast and there seemed to be no rational explanation and I said to the guys I couldn't sit there anymore and had to get up and go.

"I don't know what happened and people might say I made it up, but as a serious journalist I have a lot to lose by admitting this.

"Bobby kept saying 'didn't I tell you, didn't I tell you' and I admitted it was one out of eight.

"But it was very frightening."

Other serial killers on their list included Charles Starkweather (the inspiration for film Natural Born Killers) and the Boston Strangler Albert DeSalvo.

While Julie admits to one personal encounter, she said she remains unconvinced but open minded about the after life.

She made sure that there was enough factual content in the show so that sceptics could enjoy it as well as the psychic fans.

"I never personally had a conversation with a serial killer, dead or alive. My conclusions from the programme are mainly based of the factual evidence we found.

"We spoke to police officers and we spoke to witnesses including two women who saw a naked white boy near their house and called the police.

"When they arrived, Jeffrey Dahmer came out and convinced the police that the boy was his boyfriend and the police let him take the boy into his house. He later turned up dead.

"When they caught Ted Bundy they convicted him based on a mould of his teeth which matched abite mark on a victim's bum and we got to see the mould.

"I managed to get under the skin of these different killers to try to get an understanding of what motivates these kind of people through talking to others who were involved."

Julie added: "I didn't see any ghosts, I don't believe in ghosts.

"But I do believe in place memory, which is were a location can retain a memory of something that happened in the past."